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Re: **BREAKING** U.S. Supreme Court Refuses to Rule on Gay Marriage

Originally Posted by clownboy

No, absolutely not. Sexual orientation is not covered by the 14th, nor was that the intent of the 14th to begin with.

Gender is, and your "intent" argument is just an opinion. If the people writing the 14th amendment only wanted it to cover race, they worded it wrong. How terrible, they worded it in a manner that can be broadly interpreted towards individual liberty. Sorry this bothers you.

He touched her over her bra and underpants, she says, and guided her hand to touch him over his underwear

Re: **BREAKING** U.S. Supreme Court Refuses to Rule on Gay Marriage

"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

The problem with your argument is along came the 14th amendment which put a certain limit on the powers of the states. It states...

"No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."

So...the constitution does no specifically mention "marriage" but it does mention "laws" and same sex marriage bans happen to be "laws" and as a matter of argument they happen to be "laws" which deprive certain people " of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law" and deny certain people with their jurisdiction "equal protection."

Now if you need further precedent we have Loving versus Virginia which was the court case in 1968 in which the Supreme Court struck down interracial marriage bans and as the majority decision stated...

"Marriage is one of the "basic civil rights of man," fundamental to our very existence and survival.... To deny this fundamental freedom on so unsupportable a basis as the racial classifications embodied in these statutes, classifications so directly subversive of the principle of equality at the heart of the Fourteenth Amendment, is surely to deprive all the State's citizens of liberty without due process of law. The Fourteenth Amendment requires that the freedom of choice to marry not be restricted by invidious racial discrimination. Under our Constitution, the freedom to marry, or not marry, a person of another race resides with the individual and cannot be infringed by the State."

So to take the "state marriage bans are fine because marriage is not mentioned in the Constitution" argument would mean that SCOTUS was somehow wrong in striking down the interracial marriage bans on the grounds of the 14th amendment. It just is not a historically or Constitutionally sound argument to make.

Yep, and if the state had a constitution that laid down one man and one woman definition of marriage they would only be in violation of the 14th if they didn't allow one man to marry one woman. That's equality under the law.

As for the rest, it's just nonsense in this discussion. You cannot claim with a straight face that homosexual marriage has anything to do with our need for survival.

Re: **BREAKING** U.S. Supreme Court Refuses to Rule on Gay Marriage

Originally Posted by clownboy

Yep, and if the state had a constitution that laid down one man and one woman definition of marriage they would only be in violation of the 14th if they didn't allow one man to marry one woman. That's equality under the law.

As for the rest, it's just nonsense in this discussion. You cannot claim with a straight face that homosexual marriage has anything to do with our need for survival.

If you want to make the new argument that "procreation is a legitimate state interest for marriage bans" or that "denying marriage to same sex couples does not violate equal protection because it discriminates equally" then that is fine and I can easily contest those new arguments. However, I was contesting your old 10th amendment argument that "marriage is not mentioned in the Constitution so the federal government has not place in it." That was not a sound argument.